


The Far Lands

by Speedwell



Category: Game Grumps, Watership Down - Richard Adams, Youtube RPF
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-02-27 23:32:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2710697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Speedwell/pseuds/Speedwell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their warren was destroyed, and the group of rabbits was left with no choice but to move on. Every rabbit banded together, clinging to two things: the promise of hope and a new home.</p><p>(Watership Down!AU focusing mainly on Game Grumps but featuring some other great personalities.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Hrududil

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. If you're reading this, I'm surprised but delighted. Welcome, enjoy. I worked on this fanfiction for NaNoWriMo 2014 and won! So I decided to post it here. It will be updated once a week until its completion.
> 
> Character key for this chapter:
> 
> Arin - Hawthorn  
> Suzy - Rain Lily  
> Jon - Trillium

The dust scattered around his feet as he raced through the hills. A sleek and slender fellow, he tore across the land faster than any creature in the world. The sun beat down from the heavens and onto the earth. Birds sang and leaped and glided through the trees. Yes, this - this was paradise, and he was El-ahrairah, the Prince of a Thousand Enemies, the prince of rabbits.

Or, he was being toppled over by a paw lifting his rear end up and knocking him on his head.

The young buck skidded across the field before coming to a stop on a large rock. "Ow," he complained, taking his forepaws and rubbing his nose. He had skinned it in his fall, and was checking for blood.

The owner of the offending paw hopped up to him, laughing loud and deep. "Watch behind you next time, Hawthorn," he sniffed. "A fox could've pounced on you and you wouldn't have noticed."

Hawthorn grumbled at the black rabbit standing above him with a smug grin. Pouting, he rolled onto his feet and shook the dirt from his shaggy brown fur. "You didn't have to push me," he said. "That was totally uncalled for, Trillium."

"Aw, you're going to get upset over a measly prank?"

"I skinned my nose, I'll have you know. What if it had begun to bleed? Every elil within a hundred miles would be upon us, and it would be your fault for pushing me!" Hawthorn flared his sore nostrils.

Trillium shrugged. "It was only a light shove, relax."

"I'll relax you!" Hawthorn ducked his head and bared his buck teeth, ready for a fight. 

At this, Trillium's ears twitched with interest. He was a large, burly sort, and he wanted to become Owsla, Hawthorn knew that. Trillium dug his claws into the ground and stood on all fours, staring Hawthorn down and licking his chops.

Just then, a loud, shrill cry rose up from across the field, and Hawthorn and Trillium stood dead in their tracks. When it rang out again, the pair, forgetting their duel, tore across the field together until a burrow could be seen. They leapt headfirst into it, first Hawhtorn and then Trillium, and shot down the tunnel underground until the cry could no longer be heard.

It was dark in that tunnel, but it was warm, and the soil was packed in and sturdy from generations of mothers ready to kit clawing and digging and perfecting its walls. They could have gone further down, into the main burrow with the rest of the warren, but Trillium was a rather unpopular sort, so Hawthorn didn't want to risk it. Black rabbits were very uncommon, and their warren was a superstitious sort. Trillium had told Hawthorn once that when he was young, mother rabbits would tell Trillium's mother that they wished she had taken him back into her body, as does are able to do if they do not want to give birth. There were even whispers that Trillium was in fact not an ordinary rabbit, but the Black Rabbit of Inlé in disguise.

No, it was not a good idea to join the warren when the Owsla had sent a danger call.

The sounds from aboveground were muffled and quiet, and Hawthorn tilted his ears as much as he could to the burrow's entrance to hear. 

"What is it?" Trillium asked. "What do you hear? Is it dangerous?"

"It's... I don't know." Hawthorn twitched his whiskers, scrunched his nose, and closed his eyes, wishing for the senses of El-ahrairah. "There's a... a whirring sound. Like a hrududu would sound, I guess."

"A hrududu?" Trillium echoed. "But what are they doing all the way out here? My mother said we were miles from any road!"

"Shh! I'm listening, so be quiet!"

The sound grew louder and louder, until a sharp, white alertness seared up through Hawthorn from the base of his tail. "Run! Now!"

Hawthorn pushed Trillium aside, darting down in the direction of the main burrow, and Trillium followed after a clumsy start. "Where are we going? Why are we running? What's going on?"

"There's no time! Out! Everyone has to get out right now!"

"Hawthorn, you're mad!"

"Better than dead!" Hawthron squeezed through the sharp U-shape of the tunnel and into the main burrow, where at least thirty rabbits were cowering belowground. "Where are the Owsla?" he asked them all, standing on his back legs so they could all see and hear him. "Rain Lily! Where's Rain Lily?"

"Right here," a gray and black furred rabbit said, standing on her own haunches. Her thick, unusual black mane of fur that started on top of her head draped well over her shoulders, and Hawthorn could see that her sides were heaving.

"Rain Lily, we need to get everyone out. There's a hrududu coming and I think it's going to come down the burrow Trillium and I just came from."

"A hrududu?" But when Rain Lily perked her ears, listening for the sound, she started in place. "Hrududu! He's right!" Rain Lily leapt over some smaller rabbits, rousing some large, cream-colored fellows. "Flax, Wheat, take this group into two and get them out the southern burrows. If you see Mallow and Chokeberry, tell them to run as fast as they can and take any stragglers with them."

"What about Lichen-rah?" one of them asked.

"You'll find him when you leave, he's in a burrow on the southernmost edge of the warren. He's in a hollow tree on the ground, you can't miss him. Now, go!"

Without hesitation, Wheat and Flax began to bark orders at the cowering rabbits and encouraged them to follow. Rain Lily tilted her head for Hawthorn and Trillium, who was rather miffed that he had not been included in this discussion, to follow. They weaved through the nervous crowd until they were at Rain Lily's bicolor tail and moved as one up a small tunnel. Hawthorn could hear Trillium groaning behind him, and he internally cursed himself. Of course! Trillium was too broad to fit!

"Rain Lily, we have to go back," Hawthorn said sharply before she could climb up a sharp turn.

Rain Lily glared behind her. "Why? What's wrong?"

"I'm stuck," Trillium said pitifully. "I can't fit. I'm too big for this tunnel."

Rain Lily sighed before a loud, screaming sound pierced the air. All three rabbits pinned their ears back, and Rain Lily looked at the entrance of the tunnel before gasping. "Turn back! Run! It's not safe!"

Like a flash of lightning, Hawthorn whipped around on his feet and followed Trillium, who wiggled himself free and fell down the hole. There was no time to talk, for the earth around them began to quake and crumble. Hawthorn saw one of the tunnels Wheat (or Flax) had used and bolted for it, nudging Trillium along with his muzzle in his shoulder. Rain Lily followed closely behind, bringing up the rear and urging them on.

It couldn't have been more than thirty seconds they were in the tunnel, which was larger and older than the smaller one they had just tried to run out of, but it was certainly one of the longest moments of their lives, and just as Rain Lily bounded out from the mouth of the burrow, it collapsed behind her, filling itself with earth and grass and rocks. "What's happening?" she asked, turning around. "Oh, no, what in Frith's name?!"

Hawthorn turned while Trillium helplessly panted, exhausted. Several hrududil, with long, silver ends than spun faster than anything were launching themselves into the earth, twisting and turning it. "It's men, isn't it?" he asked.

Rain Lily nodded slowly, quaking in place."I've- I've heard stories and all the precautions from my Owsla training, but I- I never thought - Not here, never here, so far away from Man..."

Trillium heaved himself onto his feet. "We've got to keep going," he insisted. "We can't stay here. It's too dangerous."

"Where are we going to go?" Hawthorn whined. "This is all we've ever known. And now it's being destroyed."

"Anywhere, but not here. We'll die if we stay here."

"And we'll die if we leave!"

"Every rabbit dies someday or another," Rain Lily said, shaking her head and regaining her composure. "Let's not make ours sooner and go. A warren can be rebuilt. The same can't be said for a rabbit."

With the droning of massive hrududil in their ears, the three rabbits moved steadily onward, trying to trace the tracks of the members of their warren.


	2. The Death of Lichen-rah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for being behind on updates! I got super busy with school and finals. Expect more regular updates now!
> 
> Updated character key:
> 
> Arin - Hawthorn  
> Jon - Trillium  
> Suzy - Rain Lily  
> Ross - Moss

Soon the sun began to fall towards the east, staining the sky red. The hrududil appeared not to be chasing the rabbits, and they decided as a group that their pace could afford to be slowed, which was good for Trillium. Rain Lily, however, began to scuffle about nervously as they got closer and closer to the edge of the field, moving in a zigzag formation ahead of the two bucks. "Where are they? Where are they?" she kept asking, before she finally began to call for the Owsla by name. "Wheat? Flax? Chokeberry? Mallow? Captain Blueberry? Lichen-rah?"

"I-I don't think they're coming out," a small voice said, and Rain Lily stopped in her tracks, her ears shooting up.

"Who was that? State your name."

The rabbit, a sleek, golden buck snuck out from beneath a bush, and Hawthorn breathed a sigh of relief. "Moss! There you are!"

Moss lifted his head and grinned. "Hawthorn! I was wondering where you'd got to! And Trillium, too! Oh, thank Frith in the hills. You're all right."

"Your name's Moss, then?" Rain Lily asked, hopping around him and examining him.

Moss nodded patiently, grooming his chest fur. "Yes, that's me. I'm Moss." 

"Was anyone with you when you left?"

"Left? Oh- oh no, I, I wasn't in the burrow," Moss explained awkwardly. "I was right there, under that bush, the whole time. I was asleep before the alarm sounded and I was too frightened to move, so I just... stayed there and hoped elil wouldn't see me."

Rain Lily scrunched up her nose. "Well, that was a stupid move, but it saved your life. Where are the others? Where are Wheat and Flax and the rabbits they took out of the tunnels?"

"I don't know," whispered Moss. "I didn't see any rabbits come this way."

"What?! I told them specifically to head south! And- and look, that's Lichen-rah's den! There's no way they couldn't have passed by here!"

"I'm telling you, nobody came this way. I was watching the whole time."

"That's... that's impossible... There were hrair rabbits, how could you not have seen them?"

"Because they never made it," Hawthorn said softly. When Rain Lily sharply turned her head to glare at him, he ducked his head. "That's the only explanation. Something stopped Wheat and Flax and the others from making it this far."

"Maybe a hrududu," Trillium added hoarsely.

Rain Lily simply shook her head, the wild mane of hair flying about in all directions. "No! This isn't happening! They can't just be gone! I'm Owsla, it's my job to protect them! I've got to find them!" She broke off from the three bucks, calling out the names of as many rabbits as she could remember, the whirring of hrududil in the distance swallowing her words like water.

Moss turned to stop her, but Hawthorn put a paw on his shoulder. "Leave her," he said softly. "She needs time. This is the weight of every rabbit in the warren on her shoulders now."

Moss looked at her weakly, pinning his ears back. "So we're just going to let her ruin herself and think it's her fault the hrududu took our friends?"

"Rain Lily's competent," Trillum said, hopping to approach Moss and Hawthorn. "She'll understand soon. She's Owsla, for Frith's sake. How many does are in the Owsla?"

"I fail to see what her being a doe has to do with it," Hawthorn quipped, "but you're right. We just... need to let her do this."

"Let's check Lichen-rah's den for her," Trillium suggested.

"Won't she try to check it herself even if we tell her what's happened?" Moss asked.

"Probably, but she'll have all of us to confirm what she's seeing. Let's go." Trillium lead the short march to the hollow oak, that hardly looked like a tree but instead something the earth had risen up with a yawn. It was covered in grass and wildflowers, and the faint sound of ragged breathing could be heard from inside. 

"He's alive?" Moss said incredulously.

"I'm going to talk to him," Hawthorn said.

"Are you sure?" Trillium asked. "What if there's elil down there?"

"He's my Chief," Hawthorn said. "I have to try."

Without another word, Hawthorn made his way down the oak trunk. It was a wide, weak sort of hole, and the wind whistled and wheezed through the soft bark. The squishing sound of moving grubs could be heard from all around, and Hawthon flinched when one touched his toe.

Finally, a horrible smell began to overtake Hawthorn, and he recoiled as the foul odor filled his nostrils. Was Lichen-rah ill?

"Lichen-rah, can you hear me?" Hawthorn called. "I'm a buck from your warren, Hawthorn. Surely you knew my mother?"

There was a weak, wordless reply, and Hawthorn called out again. "Lichen-rah, sir, I'm an outskirter from your warren. My name is Hawthorn. I'm here to help you."

"Out... out... save yourself..." His voice, which Hawthorn had once been told was deep and rumbling like thunder, was weak and raspy, and there was a faint gurgle in his words that frightened Hawthorn. And Hawthorn knew that he should have ran, should have turned and bolted right out of that miserable, yawning hole, but something, something completely unknown to him called him forward, so forward he went.

Sunlight filtered through some of the bark's weak spots, leaving small patches of dim light amongst the gloom of the tree. They fell perfectly, almost eerily, on the body of Lichen-rah, gray and weary with age. He had lived a long, fruitful life, but now it seemed that, at the most inopportune time, the Black Rabbit was calling his name.

"Lichen-rah, please, let me help you," Hawthorn said, peering over the Chief Rabbit's body to get a better look. He winced. Lichen-rah was skinny enough that Hawthorn could see his ribs and spine, and blood and mucus and other kinds of filth dribbled from his nose, his ears, and his rear end. This looked like a miserable way to die.

"I heard them," Lichen-rah gasped. "The hrududil. Did... did everyone get out? They must've. You got out all right." He coughed and a flurry of green mucus erupted from his jowls. He looked up at Hawthorn with glassy eyes, barely seeing him. "They g-got out, didn't they?"

Hawthorn didn't have the heart to tell the truth. "Of course they did. They're your rabbits."

Lichen-rah sighed. "That's good. I can... I can go now. Is that you, Hyzenhain? I'm ready... I'm ready to go now..."

And Lichen-rah's skin stretched and fell around his ribs once, twice, three times, and with a pitiful wheeze, he was gone.

Hawthorn sighed and bowed his head. "My heart has joined the Thousand," he whispered, "for my friend stopped running today." 

With a heavy heart, Hawthorn turned on his heels and hopped out of the hollow tree.

Trillium and Moss were both bouncing on their feet, anxious to hear what Hawthorn had to say. Hawthorn shook his head.

"He's gone," Hawthorn said. "He's gone to join the Thousand."

Trillium shrunk. "Not Lichen-rah... What'll we do without him?"

"We'll have to go on," Hawthorn replied. 

At that moment, Rain Lily approached the small group, looking visibly distressed. "I can't find them," she said. "I can't find them - not one. Where could they have gone? There's no smell, no tracks, no fur, nothing. Not even hraka!" She turned her head wildly and then seemingly for the first time noticed the Chief Rabbit's den. "Oh! Lichen-rah! He must know, I'll ask him. Surely Captain Blueberry's gone to see him-"

Hawthorn jumped in front of the entrance to the den. "Rain Lily, don't. He's not there anymore."

"Well then, tell me where he's gone! We need to find the missing rabbits!"

"Rain Lily, please, you're not listening-"

"Get out of my way!" Rain Lily rose to her haunches and dug her claws into into Hawthorn's shoulders, and he leapt back with a loud yelp. Seizing her opportunity, Rain Lily dove into the hollowed out log and ran down its trunk, only to shriek and run out again in moments.

"Zorn! Zorn!" she cried. "Zorn, all gone! Zorn! All gone! All dead!"

A gray feeling of dread crept up from Hawthorn's toes, and Moss began to tremble behind him. A stony, cold look filled Trillium's face, and he turned away so that he could not be seen. Zorn. Yes. That could be the only thing to call this. Zorn, the Lapine word for complete and utter destruction. How commonplace could this be for the people of El-ahrairah that they should need a word to describe misery of this magnitude?

The red sun bled into the coming darkness of the night, and Rain Lily's cries could be heard echoing through the empty field, accompanied by the slow hum of hrududil in the distance.


	3. The Other Sense

It was nightfall before Rain Lily was able to gain control of herself again. Without speaking or apologizing (which Trillium seemed to want to demand of her), she scouted out a way farther from the burrow. "Farther south," she said. "The hrududil came from the north, so we should go south."

"But we don't know what's out there," Hawthorn said. "Where will we go?"

"I don't know," Rain Lily replied. "Maybe we'll find a burrow of our own, or a small warren looking for rabbits to join. But we'll find a way. All we need to do is to stick together."

"Easy for you to say," Trillium snorted. "We're four rabbits, alone, in the woods, with elil all around us, in the middle of the night! We'll be slaughtered before Frith rises! Why should we follow you, anyway? No proper Chief has ever been a doe!"

A twig snapped in the distance and Rain Lily stopped in place. "Excuse me?" she asked, not turning her head.

Trillium faltered, lifting one forepaw anxiously. "Um..."

"No, please. Tell me. What were you saying?" 

"Y-you know what? Never mind. We'll follow you."

Rain Lily sniffed, slowly, letting the silence fill the air. "Good then. We'll go on."

Off into the night they went, dodging between bushes and tree roots for cover while the foxes and badgers lumbered about and the owls hooted and soared in the blackness of the sky. Fu Inlé, Rain Lily led them through the thick copse outside the meadow, muttering Owsla tricks and sayings to keep herself alert. 

Rabbits are not creatures of determination. They are animals of impulse. They do not act, but react. This air of determined will that emanated from Rain Lily, and indeed, from great Owsla captains and Chief Rabbits, was a rare gift to a rabbit. A rare gift, but a contagious one, and soon, all the rabbits in the small group of four were sharp-eyed and -eared and -willed.

But just as they were about to leave the roots of a willow tree, Rain Lily froze in place, and indeed, in the eyes of the other rabbits, she seemed to have gone tharn, that poisonous state of fear and paralysis that overtook many rabbits. But the strong tone of her voice gave away that she was not tharn at all. "Don't move," she hissed. "Snake."

Hawthorn and Trillium nearly fainted from fright, for a snake large enough could kill and swallow a rabbit in one bite. However, Moss, who was on the opposite side of Rain Lily, craned his head very slowly to look. "I don't think it's dangerous," he whispered softly.

"All snakes are dangerous," Rain Lily shot back. "Do as I tell you and don't. Move. A muscle."

"Can it hear us?" Hawthorn asked.

"No, they haven't got proper ears. But it can sense movement. So be still. Still like the dead."

Was now really a proper time to bring up dead rabbits?

No matter. Hawthorn did as he was told and remained frozen in place, trying to ignore the cramping steadily growing in his right forepaw. Surely it would go away soon. It was elil, after all, and elil looked for easy prey. Even Trillium remained silent and motionless at the threat of elil.

But Moss could not be stilled. "I'm going to check it out," he said. "If it's dangerous, I'll stamp, and you all run the other way."

"Absolutely not!" Rain Lily said furiously. "I'm not sending one of my rabbits out to be killed. I'm Owsla, you'll do as I tell you!"

"If you're Owsla, then who's Chief? You can't have an Owsla without a Chief! I'm going, and you can't stop me. I'm faster than you and everyone else here. If there's any rabbit who should go and face the snake, it's me." Moss fixed the two bucks in his unusual blue gaze. "You understand, don't you?"

"I think you're mad," Trillium said. "Mad, or you have a death wish."

Hawthorn felt that odd tingling again in his chest, the same one he had felt in the den of Lichen-rah. "No," he said. "No, Moss is right. If any of us should go, it's him. He's the fastest and the most agile."

"It's a snake," Rain Lily said, exhausted. "Let me say this to you, Hawthorn, very slowly: If. He. Goes. He. Will. Die."

"And what if Moss is right? What if it's not dangerous at all?"

"All snakes are dangerous! They tell you so in Owsla training, not that'd you'd know anything about that."

"They tell you that so you don't go and get it in your head that you're strong and smart enough to take on elil. Keeping you afraid is what keeps you alive. But I - I think sometimes we rabbits have this sense, this other sense, that tells us when things are not dangerous. And if Moss's other sense is telling him that the snake is not dangerous, then we should let him confirm that." He paused, uncomfortable now with all eyes on him, and wished that he could move to groom himself. Instead, he turned his eyes down at a patch of dirt beneath him. "At least, I think so, anyway."

"It might be worth a shot," Trillium mumbled.

Frustrated, Rain Lily visibly resisted the urge to stamp her foot and looked at Moss. "Go. Investigate. If it kills you then we'll have time to run. Don't expect us to come looking for you if you don't come back."

Moss blinked. "I'm sure I will."

Then he raced off silently into the wood, into the pile of rotting and old leaves from last year's fall. There was a faint rustling, the soft growl of a rabbit, and Rain Lily opened her mouth to give a command, but before she could, Moss's head poked comically out of the pile, a large, red maple leaf resting just between his ears. "It's all right!" he called to them. "It's been dead for a few hours now. We're safe!"

Rain Lily's jaws and ears dropped, and, growling, she went into the pile herself to investigate. "Oh, embleer Frith, damn it all!"

The violent curse against Lord Frith shook Hawthorn and his friends, and Rain Lily exited the pile with a sour expression on her face. "Let's not waste any more of our time here," she mumbled.

Trillium and Moss exchanged a glance and began to huff quietly with laughter, but Hawthorn hopped to Rain Lily's side. "Are you all right?" he asked softly, so as not to be heard by the others.

"You must be," Rain Lily said bitterly. "Are you happy? Your idea embarrassed me in front of my other rabbits. An Owsla officer mistaking a dead snake for a live one - oh, if Captain Blueberry were to hear-!"

But then she stopped and looked down at the ground, slowing her pace as she went. "Captain Blueberry," she repeated, softly this time. "What shall we do without him?"

"We'll get on," Hawthorn replied. "You've got all of us, and we've got you."

"And what are we? A couple of hlessil with a rogue officer, without a burrow or a scrape to sleep in." A deep sigh shook her frame. "Truth be told, I worry we'll be dead by morning, all of us."

Hawthorn let a small grin form around his buck teeth. "My other sense tells me we'll be very much alive come morning."

"Do you think you're being funny?"

"I think I'm making a wager," he clarified. "Let's say this: If you're right, and we're all dead before the night ends, then you can tell the Black Rabbit of Inlé to send my soul to wherever elil go, so I can be chased down for all eternity by foxes and badgers and all other sorts of nasty creatures. But, if I'm right, and we're all still alive when the sun rises, then you have to promise me that you'll stop beating yourself up over every mistake."

"Oh, what, that's it? No torture, no humiliation, not even sending me to find you flayrah?"

Hawthorn shook his head. "Not at all. All I want is for the finest Owsla officer I know to stop treating herself like she's trapped in the marshes of Kelfazin."

Rain Lily's ears twitched with amusement. "You're a strange sort, Hawthorn," she told him. "But I could grow fond of you yet."


	4. The Homba

Eventually the group of rabbits came to rest under a low-hanging blackberry bush. Moving at such a rate was exhausting to their small bodies, and they frequently needed to stop and regain their strength. Trillium and Rain Lily were nibbling on the sparse amount of grass under the bush, while Moss went to pass hraka. This left Hawthorn at the edge of the bush on sentry duty. He had never done anything like this before, for as an outskirter, he was used to only watching elil for himself, and as Trillium pointed out earlier that day (had it not even been a day yet?), he wasn't very good at it. Now, however, knowing that Rain Lily, Trillium, and Moss depended on his alertness for their survival, the very fringes of his fur felt as though they were on fire with anxiety.

However, all seemed to pass quietly, and soon Moss returned with a small patch of clover in his teeth. "I found some just around the bend from that maple," he said. "Here, take it, I had plenty while I was gone. Hawthorn, I'll take over now if you want."

Normally, Hawthorn would have objected, but the clover looked thick and enticing, better than any he'd tasted in the meadow. "Sure, that would be great. Thank you, Moss."

"Not a problem," he said, hopping around Hawthorn and taking his place at the edge of the bush. Hawthorn loped back to the clover, noticing that Rain Lily, likely from exhaustion of the mind, had fallen asleep.

"Should we wake her?" Trillium asked.

"No, it might be best to let her sleep," Hawthorn replied. "She's been through enough today."

"Let's just hope she doesn't relive it in her mind," the black rabbit replied, and they both set on the clover without another word. 

"You know," Trillium said quietly, so that Moss would not overhear, "I've been thinking."

"That's unusual," Hawthorn quipped, and received a cuff on the ear.

"I'm serious. I've been thinking about today, and about how you've been handling everything, and I have to say, Hawthorn - you act rather like a Chief Rabbit."

Hawthorn snorted. "Me? A Chief? What are you, plagued with bees in your head? I could never be a Chief Rabbit. I haven't the gall for it."

Trillium's lips curled around the clover stem in his mouth. "All I'm saying is, if you were to become Chief Rabbit, I wouldn't mind."

A loud huff escaped Hawthorn's lips, causing Moss to turn his head, but he quickly turned back to sentry duty. Moss was never a rabbit with ears for gossip. 

"The only way I'll ever become a Chief," Hawthorn said quietly, "is if you became one with me."

Trillium blinked slowly. "I think that might work out very well. Your brains, and my brawn, looks, and ever-so-charming wit - we'd be unstoppable!"

"So it's settled then. I'm no Chief without you."

They continued to eat in silence, letting the sounds of crickets fill the void. At last, long after the clover was gone, Rain Lily began to stir. Blearily, she shook her black mane and looked about her. "Did Moss get back?"

"Yes, I was on sentry duty," he said. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. "I'm fine, really. Just needed to rest my eyes." With a loud pop, she stretched her shoulders and got herself to her feet. "We should get going."

"Shouldn't be far now," Moss said. "I can see the edge of the wood from here. There's another meadow just beyond. We might be able to make some scrapes there, if we're lucky."

"That's an idea."

The hlessil wandered once more through the wood, and, upon seeing what Moss had noticed, were confident they would be out of it by sunrise. Rain Lily seemed invigorated once more, filled with a sense of purpose and an air of certainty. She barked orders and kept turning back to push the others along, keeping them all in line and watching for elil in the process. The trek was long and arduous, but the rabbits moved steadily on, not too fast or too slow. 

After several false starts and alarms, the last strip of thin, wiry trees was upon them, and it took all of Rain Lily's force and insistence, much of it physical, to keep the three bucks from sprinting out and into the open. Slowly, almost painfully so, they emerged from the wood, and when Hawthorn looked up at the sky, he saw that the first dim blue light of dawn was peaking over the dark mountains in the distance. 

"What'd I tell you?" he asked the Owsla officer with a grin. "We're all alive and the sun's just about to rise."

Rain Lily simply scoffed and rolled her eyes, but her whiskers twitched in a playful sort of manner.

"Now, you two," she said to Trillium and Hawthorn once they were far away enough from the woods, "go and find some dry soil and dig some scrapes. If I catch you dozing or playing instead of working, I'll tear your ears to bits, you understand me?" When they nodded, she turned her attention to Moss. "You. Moss, yeah? You're to use that speed of yours and scout the perimeter of this field. Check for elil, disease, Man, and other rabbits. If you find a warren, observe them, then report back to me immediately. I expect you back here when Frith is high, and no later. Clear?"

"As water in the river!" Moss quipped before bolting away. Rain Lily watched him go and nodded in approval as he disappeared from sight.

Hawthorn nudged Trillium's shoulder, not wanting to waste any more time. "Come on, let's dig some scrapes for us to sleep in."

"Wait, now, hold on one minute," Trillium said. "If Moss is a scout, and we're to dig scrapes, then what are you going to do? We've already let you laze about. If anyone should sleep, it's Hawthorn. He's done half the work as it is."

"No, Trillium, not now," Hawthorn hissed.

Rain Lily either didn't hear Hawthorn or chose to ignore him, because her nostrils flared and her ears tilted back. "For your information, I'm going to stay right here and watch for elil while you two dig scrapes."

"Why don't I be sentry instead?" Trillium offered. "Digging is a doe's job anyway, everyone knows that."

"Trillium, stop it!" Hawthorn said, his tail about ready to flash up in a start.

A ferocious growl rose from Rain Lily's throat. "As Owsla, it's also a doe's job to tear insolent yearlings like you to pieces if you don't shut your mouth."

"I'm as big as any Owsla!" Trillium puffed. "I could take you in a fight!"

"Could you?" Rain Lily retorted, and her voice was cold and calculated.

But at that moment, before either of them could really draw out their claws, the shriek of a rabbit could be heard. "Homba!" it cried. "Homba! Run for your lives! Fox! Homba!"

Their tails shot up immediately. "That's Moss!" Hawthorn said. "We've got to go get him!"

"What, and get ourselves killed?!" Trillium protested.

"He was willing to jump into the mouth of a snake for us, you imbecile!" Rain Lily snarled, cuffing him square between the eyes. "Now we have to go help him."

But Hawthorn wasn't listening to them fight, for his feet were already sprinting in Moss's direction. The one sad comfort about the situation was that Moss's screams were not at horrific as they could have been. If he were being scratched or bitten, that would be one thing, but Hawthorn couldn't hear any level of pain in his cries, only fear. But that meant that he had to be swift, and Hawthorn silently prayed for his feet to be faster than wind.

It was soon that Rain Lily was behind him, with Trillium lagging behind at a steady pace. "This could be bad," she said to him. "If the homba is sick, we might have to set it on something else just to get it to leave Moss alone."

"What, like the white blindness?"

"No, not white blindness. It's a sort of disease that makes a creature foam at the mouth and run about like a mad thing. You can't let it bite you or you'll get it, too. And that illness ends only in death."

Hawthorn growled. "That's a wonderful thing to tell me when we're trying to save Moss!" 

"I'm just warning you!"

There was no time for any further argument, for another of Moss's cries rang in their ears, and they found themselves face-to-tail with a large, red fox. It had Moss cornered against a yew tree, and Moss expertly dodged its attempts to bite him. "What are you doing?" Moss cried. "Go, run away from here, it's not safe!"

"We're here to help you!" Hawthorn cried, but before he could finish, Rain Lily threw herself in under the fox's feet.

"Come on, you lazy git!" she snarled. "Come on, fight me! Try and get your teeth into a real rabbit!"

The homba flicked its ears, scanning around for the sound of Rain Lily's voice. It snarled and paced, unable to find her as she ran under its belly. Then Rain Lily sprung up and nipped at its belly, causing the fox to yelp and kick wildly. It rolled on its back and Rain Lily leaped to claw at its face.

"What, can't even fight a rabbit!? What kind of elil are you? Weakling! Come on, get up and fight me!"

Her taunting was maddening to listen to, but it gave Moss an opening to sprint away from the yew and towards Hawthorn. "She's lost her mind!" he said, panting. "But she's a legend if there ever was one."

"Rain Lily, that's enough!" Hawthorn cried. "He's safe! Moss is safe! Get back here!"

But Rain Lily was deaf to his cries. She clawed and bit and snapped at the fox's face, making it growl and yip and fight. "Come on, really go for it!" Rain Lily shouted. "What're you waiting for?"

A sudden black shape came bursting from the undergrowth on the other side of the fox just as it was about to open its jaws and pounce on Rain Lily. The wind was knocked right out of the fox and it toppled over onto its side.

"Come on, you mad thing, don't go tharn on us now!" the black shape, which turned out to be Trillium, said to the stunned gray and black doe. He nudged her shoulder with his nose and turned her around, encouraging her to run the other way. Eventually she did, and all four rabbits darted as far away as they could.


	5. Moss's Plan

The four rabbits slept in a hastily dug scrape in the middle of the meadow as the warm ni-Frith sun beat down upon them. Trillium took it upon himself to be sentry. It was found later that Moss had suffered a shallow graze across his right shoulder, but with a ferocious grooming and licking from Hawthorn, Rain Lily determined that it would heal quickly.

There was a noticeable distress among the group that had bloomed in the wake of the homba attack. Before, Hawthorn determined silently, the four hlessil had perhaps felt that they were invincible. After all, a serious warning from an Owsla officer had turned out to be a mistake, and the trek through the woods was a long but one fraught with little real danger. In their haste to find a new home, perhaps they had forgotten how dangerous the world really was.

"All the world will be your enemy," Lord Frith said to El-ahrairah. Frith was right. In any given situation, there was a certain amount of danger lurking. What could they ever do to avoid a terrible fate like drowning, or being swept away in a storm, or succumbing to any number of terrible illnesses, or being hunted by a man with a firestick or a wire, or being eaten by elil, or-

"Say, Hawthorn," came the voice of Moss, shaking Hawthorn from his distressed reverie. "You awake?"

Hawthorn nodded. "What are you doing up? You were nearly eaten. You of all of us deserve to rest."

"You've known me since we were kittens," Moss replied. "Sitting still has never been a skill of mine."

This was true. Even as a kitten, Moss would toss and tumble all over the den, knocking into his brothers and sisters and making a big fuss.

"So, I've been thinking," Moss continued. "While I was patrolling, I passed by a man thing - one of their strange nests, full of fields of flayrah!"

"That's just a farm," Hawthorn replied. "There's nothing special about it. Rabbits have been stealing from them for as long as there have been rabbits."

"But, listen. When I passed by, I saw a rabbit. A red-furred doe. I tried to talk to her, but she was too busy fiddling with man-things to listen to me."

"Men keep rabbits all the time. They try to make us tame." Hawthorn tsked. "On some, it works."

"But she wasn't a tame rabbit." Moss's whiskers twitched excitedly now. "There was no cage, no bell, no collar. I think she was a wild rabbit that happened to live on the farm."

Hawthorn winkled his nose. "There's no way. No wild rabbit would be stupid enough to live in a place where men live. It's a death sentence."

"Look, I know what I saw. This was a wild doe, living on a farm. And I've been thinking, what if I convince her to come back with us?" Moss's face lit up with glee at the thought.

Hawthorn shook his head, letting the shaggy, ruddy brown fur get in his eyes. "You and your strange ideas sometimes, Moss. Give me one good reason why she would want to come with us - and why we need one more rabbit with us, for that matter. Keeping four of us alive is apparently hard enough."

"She's brilliantly smart," Moss insisted, his tone more serious than it usually was. "I saw her, taking man things and twisting them and turning them into things she could use. We need a rabbit with that sort of ingenuity with us if we're to remain alive until we find a suitable burrow."

The idea alone was impressive, but Hawthorn would need to see it with his eyes to believe it. "And why would she want to come with us?"

"She's alone. Completely and utterly alone. Her smell is the only scent of rabbit I've picked up aside from ours the whole time we were here. It wasn't even on the humba, so it's not like there were rabbits and then there suddenly weren't."

Slowly, Hawthorn nodded. "Loneliness... That might be a powerful motivator."

Moss nodded in agreement. "If you like, I can go and talk to her myself."

"Talk with Rain Lily first," Hawthorn suggested. "She's the Owsla officer. She knows best what to do."

"Oh, I will," Moss replied. "But I wanted your opinion, too."

Hawthorn's ears twitched madly. "Well, I'm not sure why you would. I'm just as clueless as you."

"You know why," the gold rabbit said, a sly grin curling up on his lips. "I heard you and Trillium talking. All that Chief Rabbit stuff. Very touching, very heartwarming, your friendship is."

Hawthorn felt like he should dig his scrape and keep digging until it collapsed around him. "You..."

"He's right, you know." Moss bumped Hawthorn's nose with his own. "You've got the makings of a Chief in you."

"Both of you have clearly eaten something very bad and need to pass hraka! I am no Chief and never will be. I'm an ordinary rabbit."

"So was El-ahrairah, my friend, and he became the prince of all rabbits." Moss winked and rose to his feet. "Now, Hawthorn-rah, if you'll excuse me, I have an Owsla officer to speak to."


	6. The Doe and the Cats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same guide as before - you'll have to wait to find out who mystery doe is~

Moss was given permission from Rain Lily to go and seek out this red doe, and promptly went off. He was to be back by sundown, whether he had the red doe with him or not. It was suggested that he take Hawthorn with him, to protect him if any more danger presented itself. Hawthorn didn't like the idea of leaving Trillium alone with Rain Lily, fearful that he would come back and they'd have chewed each other's ears off. But Rain Lily insisted to him privately that he was the only one fast enough to keep up with Moss, and so Hawthorn went obediently.

The pair made their trip mostly in silence, but Hawthorn could see that Moss was bristling with excitement. He couldn't tell if it was the thrill of adventure, the idea that he might be doing something really important, or simply getting to see the doe again that excited him, but all the same, Hawthorn was happy for him.

"What do you think I should say when we get there?" Moss asked after a time.

"I've no idea," Hawthorn replied. "I haven't spoken to a rabbit outside my warren before."

"Neither have I. Do you think she'll come with us?"

"I'd hope so. It might be best if you go in alone, though."

"What makes you say that?"

"She might be overwhelmed if there's two of us. You said she's all alone, yeah? She might not be used to company."

Moss slowed his pace a little, matching Hawthorn's, and furrowed his brow. "I hadn't thought of that before."

"It's all right," Hawthorn said. "You can do it."

Moss nodded quietly.

Eventually, they reached the farm that Moss found before the homba attack. It was hardly a farm, really. There was a solitary building, a little yellow house with a brown door and dirty siding, a few sparse gardens of carrots and lettuce and one sad-looking tomato plant, and some empty watering cans, flowerpots, and a shelving unit that was nearly completely empty except for a few pots and some slabs of plywood.

"This is your farm?" Hawthorn asked, unimpressed.

"Isn't it neat?"

"Let's... go with that."

Moss stood on his hind legs, twisting his head this way and that as he searched for the doe. "I don't see her..." he muttered after a while. "That's odd. She was just here..."

"Maybe she's moved on. A rabbit could hardly make a home of this place. We've dug better scrapes than this man made of his dwelling."

"No, she's got to be here." But before Moss could argue further, his ears shot up with a start, and he stamped. "Cat! Two of them!"

He and Hawthorn bolted under a nearby bush, pressing close together. Two cats, a black-and-white and a ginger tabby, came out of a square flap in the door of the shanty house. Each wore a collar with a golden bell attached, making a tinkling sound as they moved. If Moss's eyes had failed him, at least they'd have heard the sound of the bell to warn them.

As if on cue, a pair of reddish-brown ears shot up in the middle of the cabbage patch. The owner of those ears stood on their hind legs and looked about them, before giving a disgruntled snort at the sight of the cats. "You again? Pesky things."

"That's her!" Moss whispered excitedly. "Hawthorn, that's her! She was here after all!"

The doe leapt over one of the sorry cabbages, making both the cats turn their heads. They broke into a run and she broke into a sprint, racing up to the shelving unit left in the middle of the yard. Cleverly she hopped along the flimsy plywood until it allowed her to reach the first shelf aboveground. It was higher than the cats were tall, but they set upon the shelves nonetheless. The black-and-white tried climbing up the plywood, but it was too heavy, and the plank snapped beneath its feet.

Its ginger companion appeared to be the cleverer of the two, stalking around until it had reached where the doe was sitting. Then it balanced itself on its hind legs and stood, reaching its paw up onto the shelf. The doe easily moved away, appearing rather calm in the face of elil. The ginger cat tried to hoist itself onto the shelf, managing to get a second paw on it and beginning to use its back limbs to spring itself up.

The doe looked around for another way out. A small gap between the two shelves had a thin metal bar for the frame's support, and quickly she raced to it and used it to hop from one shelf to the roof of the unit. In the process, she knocked one of the red clay flowerpots down onto the ground, causing it to shatter next to the frustrated black-and-white cat. It screeched and fluffed its tail in astonishment, briefly pausing in its pursuit of the rabbit.

The doe's ears shot up. "That's it!"

Moss and Hawthorn shared a puzzled look. "What's it?" they asked in unison.

The doe sprinted to the other side of the roof of the unit, where more flowerpots were sitting unused. Carefully, she crept around them and nosed them to the middle of the roof. "Not a fan of falling rubbish, are you?" she called to them. 

The ginger cat hissed, its yellow eyes gleaming with fury, but its face was quickly filled by hard red clay shattering. It screamed and lost its grip of the first shelf in pain, falling on its back. It rolled over quickly and snarled up at the doe, but she used her powerful back legs to kick yet another pot once more. This one shattered directly in front of the cat, and in surprise, it turned and bolted back to the yellow house. Its black-and-white companion followed him. 

The doe puffed her chest out and gave a loud victory cry. "And don't come back, you mangy beasts!"

She shook herself, casually grooming her chest, and laid down on top of the shelf. She muttered something that Moss and Hawthorn were unable to hear and then shut her eyes.

Beside Hawthorn, Moss shook with excitement. "That was amazing!" he gasped. "I've never seen a rabbit do something like that before!"

"It was smart," Hawthorn said, somewhat bitterly. Had Moss forgotten how Rain Lily had thrown herself into a battle with a fox to save his life? These cats clearly posed no real threat to this doe.

"I'm going to talk to her," Moss said. "Right now."

"Good luck," Hawthorn said, but the words had hardly begun to leave his mouth before Moss was racing off onto the farm.


	7. The Fifth Rabbit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same guide as before, pluuuus~
> 
> Redbud - Holly Conrad

Moss ran alone onto the farm. Hawthorn had not found it impressive, but to Moss, it was extraordinary. In his mind it was exactly like the gardens from that one El-ahrairah story, in which he had stolen King Darzin's lettuce right from under his nose. Moss tingled all over with the love of adventure, and with the anticipation of speaking to this new rabbit.

It was hardly a moment before he had reached the silver shelving unit on which the doe had made herself comfortable. He stood at the edge of one of the thin, square columns holding it up and leaned his forepaws on it, allowing him to stand on his hind legs. "Hello!" he called up, his whiskers twitching in a mad sort of way. "Hello up there!"

The doe rose her head slowly, confused. She scooted over to the edge of the roof, peering her head down and looking at him. "Yes, what do you want? I'm busy."

"Hello!" Moss said again. "My name is Moss. I just saw you now - the way you took out those cats. That was brilliant! A trick worthy of El-ahrairah!"

The doe giggled. "Well, thank you, Moss, but I'm sure you didn't come here just to flatter me."

"Could you come down?" Moss asked. "I'd like to talk to you, but it's hard this way."

"Try climbing up here" she replied. "Then we can talk."

Moss looked puzzled, glancing about the unit. There were no easy footholds or ramps to climb up; the black-and-white cat had destroyed the only one that Moss could see. "I don't think I can," he replied softly, disappointed.

"What? Oh. That fat lump ruined it, did he? Tsk. Well, all right. Give me one moment."

For a second she disappeared from view. Moss twitched his nose. Then she was running at the edge of the roof and made a massive, powerful leap straight down onto the ground. She landed with an unceremonious "Oof!" but otherwise seemed unharmed.

Moss pulled himself down onto all fours and looked closely. She was a bright, unusually dark red, with dark brown eyes and light cream-colored fur just under her eyes, around her muzzle, and under her belly. "You look like a little holly berry," he said.

The doe rolled her eyes. "I get that a lot."

A crow cawed in the distance, causing both rabbits to start. "And here I thought you were fearless," Moss joked quietly.

"Only with those two cats," she replied. "They're about as smart as a pile of hraka. Combined."

The crow passed without noticing them, and the rabbits relaxed. "So why did you come here, Moss?" the doe asked.

"Well, you see..." And Moss trailed off into telling the story of what had happened to his warren just the day before, and all the perils his small group had encountered in less than twenty-four hours. The doe listened with interest, nodding sympathetically.

"And I was sent to scout the perimeter of the meadow while Trillium and Hawthorn were digging scrapes," he said. "I passed this farm on my way. I noticed you, too, fiddling with some man-things and using them for your benefit. I tried to talk to you then, actually, but I don't think you heard me."

The doe flicked her ears as if to shrug. "When I focus on making something I hardly notice the world around me. Apologies."

"No, no, there's no need!" Moss said.

"And what's that scrape on your shoulder?" she asked. "How'd you get that?"

"Oh, that. Well, in any attempt to avoid being melodramatic, I got cornered and almost eaten by a fox. It nipped my shoulder and gave me this mark, but it's fine, I'll heal quickly."

"How did you escape?" the doe asked, blinking. "You were all alone."

"My friends came to save me!" Moss said. "Rain Lily threw herself into the fight and taunted the fox away from me, and then Trillium crashed into the fox to knock it windless. Then we all raced back to our scrapes to rest."

"That's amazing. I wish I had friends like that."

Moss twitched with anxiety all over. "Well, you see, that's - that's why I came. I spoke to them about you and what you do with man-things, and my friend Hawthorn is actually under that bush over there, and we both saw you fight off those cats, and you are just brilliant, really, you are, and-"

The doe cut him off. "Are you trying to ask me to join your little group of hlessil?"

Moss stopped, then nodded awkwardly.

"Well, it's a lovely idea in theory," she said. "I used to have a warren of my own, and lots of friends, but things just grew tense and awkward - some blamed overcrowding, some blamed an Owsla that was too strict, others blamed poor vegetation. I just chose to leave rather than blaming anyone. I traveled alone for hrair days and came upon this place, and I've been here ever since."

"Do you like it here?" Moss asked.

"It's fine enough. There's always plenty of food to eat, places to sleep, and hardly any elil except for the cats, the man, and the occasional crow. But, it's... you know. It's not the same as having a real burrow to sleep in."

Moss slowly lifted his golden ears. "So, you will come with us?"

She nodded. "Yes, I will."

"Good! Then, ah, we should get going. Hawthorn and I are due back at sundown. Oh, I'm so excited!" Moss's ears twitched and he sprung up in pure exhilaration, spinning in midair before landing. He allowed the doe to run ahead of him, but then paused.

"Wait a minute, I don't even know what your name is!"

The doe looked over her shoulder as she ran. "Call me Redbud!"

"Redbud," Moss repeated quietly, springing ahead once again in earnest.


	8. The Introduction of Redbud

The red doe reached Hawthorn before Moss, which surprised Hawthorn greatly. "Hello there," he said briskly. "I'm Hawthorn. Are you coming with us, then?"

"I intend to see what it's all about, if nothing else," the doe replied. "My name's Redbud."

"We'll be lucky to have you, Redbud."

Moss sprung next to Hawthorn, making Hawthorn start. "Let's get going!" he said excitedly. "Rain Lily's expecting us. Oh, and Trillium! He'll be delighted, I'm sure. He's got to be, right? I certainly hope he is. It'd be rather rude if he wasn't. Oh, but maybe we should stop to silflay first? Oh, no, that's a terrible idea, we should-"

"Moss," Hawthorn said. "Please, let's just stick with the original plan and head back."

"That sounds like a good idea to me," said Redbud. 

Hawthorn led the way, leaving Moss and Redbud to flank him from behind. This triangular formation was good for keeping watch of elil from all sides. They kept a steady pace across the wide expanse of grass and wildflowers blowing in the summer breeze, and as the sky became red as Frith yawned behind the hills, Hawthorn called behind him that he could see Rain Lily and Trillium.

"There you are!" Trillium said, relieved and bounding forward. "I was starting to get worried it would be just the two of us."

"Well, both of you still have ears, so you must've gotten along well enough," Hawthorn said.

Rain Lily approached them and gave Redbud a careful sniff. "So you're the doe Moss told me about."

Redbud nodded. "That's me all right. No other rabbits around for miles."

"Hm, that's troubling." Rain Lily sat on her hindquarters and scratched one of her ears. "So, tell me. What's your name? Where do you come from?"

"I'm called Redbud. I come from a burrow hrair days' travel from here."

"Why don't you live there anymore?" Trillium asked, curious.

Redbud kept her eyes on Rain Lily, who was watching her intently, as she answered. "The warren became overcrowded, some said. The Owsla became corrupt, others said. The silflay was all going bad, still others said."

"And you left for what reason?" Rain Lily asked.

"I didn't want to be part of a warren that acted like a snake swallowing its tail. I want to live a free life, one where if I have to serve under a Chief and an Owsla again, it will be one I'll respect." She looked Rain Lily up and down and gave a discreet sniff. "From what Moss has told me, I could grow to respect you."

A smile traced Rain Lily's gray features. "I look forward to it. Now, tell me: What can you do for us?"

"I can run and fight as well as any rabbit," Redbud said.

"She's faster than me!" Moss chimed in, and Hawthorn cuffed his nose for interrupting.

Rain Lily's nose wrinkled for a moment. "That's impressive. What else?"

"I look at man-things and understand them," Redbud said. "I see them and understand how they work. I can put them together and take them apart. I've used them to battle elil and driven them all off for seasons." She lifted her chin with pride. "I have not known a single rabbit with this skill other than myself."

The former Owsla officer cast a glance at Moss and Hawthorn. "Have you confirmation of this? Have you seen this doe use man-things to a rabbit's benefit? The Thousand, can they be driven off with them?"

"We saw her drive off a pfeffa," Moss said.

"Two of them," Hawthorn said. "She leapt atop this man-thing and knocked these hollow, red stones off it to scare the pfeffil off. Not a scratch on her." Moss nodded to confirm the story.

Rain Lily nodded slowly. Trillium opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, the Owsla officer said, "I think we shall have you then, Redbud. From the sounds of it, you are a rabbit with an extraordinary gift. It would be foolish to send you away." She cast her gaze on the other three rabbits that had left their warren together. "Are we agreed? Redbud shall travel with us hlessil until we have a burrow to call our own?"

"Agreed!" Moss said, stamping excitedly. Hawthorn repeated the word, albeit softer. Trillium, however looked displeased.

"What'll we do if there are kittens now?" he asked. "One of you does was enough to worry about, now two?"

"It's a problem easily prevented if you resist your urge to mount us," Redbud quipped.

"As if I'd ever have kittens," Rain Lily added, rolling her eyes. "To sit around with little ones nipping at my teats all day, with no chance to silflay or go on patrol? No, thank you."

Trillium grumbled, defeated, and flicked his ears in resigned agreement.

"Good. Then, Redbud, for your first assignment, you'll preform sentry duty while the rest of us sleep. Wake me fu Inlé and I'll take over from there. Clear?"

"Crystal," Redbud replied with a nod. When the other rabbits looked puzzled, she elaborated. "It's a type of stone that used to be plentiful near my warren. It's not clear as water, but it's shiny, and light passes through it."

"If we come upon it, you should point it out to us. I'd certainly love to see it," Rain Lily replied. She then turned to the scrapes. "Well, they're not proper burrows, but they'll have to do. Moss, dig one for Redbud for you, would you?"

It was after she'd given the command that she realized Moss had already started. She and Hawthorn exchanged a glance, amused at the golden-brown rabbit's boundless energy.


	9. The Lake

Hawthorn shifted uncomfortably in his nest for what seemed like the thousandth time. He would never be used to sleeping in the open air, with dirt protecting only his belly. How were there rabbits that lived like this all the time? He knew that he could not be a hlessi forever. At some point or another, Hawthorn knew that he would have to stop and settle down in a warren someplace.

Moss snored loudly in his ear as Trillium rolled on his back on the other side of him. Amused, he snuggled in between the two of them, letting their warmth wash over his body. In a proper warren, the body heat of all the sleeping rabbits was the one thing that was able to lull him to sleep as a kitten. There was a security in that feeling of peaceful togetherness. There was a sense that, no matter what quarrel one rabbit had with another, at Frith's rest, they could all come together as one.

It was harder to feel that sense of security out in the open. Elil threatened them on all sides. Sentry duty was unheard of in his old warren, for the rabbits slept far enough underground that there was no need to watch for elil above. But that time was gone now, and the sturdy, old burrows that he had known were gone. Forever.

A chill swept through Hawthorn's body amidst the July heat. Perhaps he had simply not let it sink in before, but now he truly understood. His warren was gone. His friends and family had disappeared, possibly (or probably) dead. His mother - where was she? He prayed to Lord Frith that she was all right. And his brothers and sisters, where had they gone? The young kittens, what became of them?

Gruesome images began to flood his mind, and pressing in close to Moss and Trillium didn't help. A pathetic whine escaped his lips. "Zorn," Rain Lily had cried. How he wished he had been able to feel it then. To feel the grief in one sudden wave so that it would be over. This sense of it trickling down as though from an icicle onto his brain was agony. He wanted simply to feel it and be gone. 

But perhaps Hawthorn's wishes were simply beyond the capability of a rabbit. Rabbits are creatures of the present moment. Each sense of theirs, each instinct, every hair and muscle and bone and sinew on their body is dedicated to the sole purpose of remaining alive right now. Indeed, the only part of a rabbit geared towards the future is its reproductive system. Hardly any rabbit knows what to do when the pain of the past threatens to overtake them. A rabbit cannot experience the past as it does the present, as a swift, fleeting thing, shortly to be replaced by another swift, fleeting thing. No, the past lingers like a fog, or a fungus, or a curtain of lichen hanging somberly over a fallen tree. It festers inside them like an infected sore, eating them alive from the inside out. Too much thought on the past can cause a rabbit to turn sour and cold.

Hawthorn did not think he could afford to turn sour and cold. 

With this thought in mind, Hawthorn's eyes at last shut, his breathing began to slow, and he fell into a deep, well-deserved sleep.

\- - -

The following morning, it was Trillium who woke him. Resting his forepaws on Hawthorn's shoulders, the big rabbit gave his smaller companion a firm shake. "Wake up, you lazy dog," he chuffed. "It's nearly halfway to ni-Frith. Rain Lily's growing impatient."

Hawthorn shook himself roughly, rising to his feet with a loud, exaggerated yawn. "I haven't slept like that since I was a kitten."

"I could say the same," Trillium said. "I haven't had anyone kicking my back like that since I lived with my littermates."

A sharpness of grief overtook the two rabbits, and they tried to shake it like frost off their fur. Not another word was spoken as they approached Rain Lily and Redbud, both sitting on their hindquarters and staring up at the sky.

"Where's Moss?" Hawthorn asked, for he was nowhere to be seen.

"Scouting ahead," Rain Lily said, not turning to face him. "We're trying to see which direction is the best for us to go in. Obviously, we want to avoid going the way Redbud's burrow was. We should head somewhere open. I don't know about you, but I don't feel like trekking through woods again. It's also important that we try to find some rabbit tracks. Hraka, hair, smell, pawprints - anything. Where other rabbits are, there's safety in numbers."

"We should also consider," Redbud added, "that wherever more rabbits are, there are more elil. So if we find any, we have to be vigilant."

"That's a good point," Rain Lily said.

Hawthorn nodded. "What should Trillium and I do?"

"Hm... Redbud, what do you think they should do?"

"Why don't they try going to the farm and stealing some flayrah?" Redbud offered. "It's an easy enough task. The man hardly ever comes outside, and the cats are so slow and daft there's no way either of them could really get hurt."

Rain Lily furrowed her brow in thought. "No, I think we should wait until we settle down into a warren for flayrah missions, but that's a good suggestion."

Before they could continue to figure out what sort of task they should be assigned to next, Moss's golden shape cane rolling over the open field. "What, he's back already?" Rain Lily asked.

He sped up to the group with a goofy grin. "You've got to see this!" he said. "Come with me, all of you!"

The four rabbits exchanged a glance, but when Rain Lily said, "All right, let's see what all the fuss is about," they followed Moss across the open field. The air was warm and buzzing with the sound of cicadas and a few straggling crickets. The five rabbits stopped and started when the caws and chirps of birds could be heard, but none flew overhead, and they were safe.

Eventually the dry grass of the meadow began to feel plush and thick beneath their paws, and the wildflowers grew more numerous. A thick, heavy smell of sweetness filled the rabbits' nostrils, and their noses began to twitch eagerly. "Moss, what have you found?" Trillium asked, looking about him in wonder.

"We're not there yet," Moss replied, "but we're close."

Eventually they came upon a small lake, with clear water perfectly reflecting the blue sky above. It was filled with lily pads and happy green frogs, darting from pad to pad with ease. An egret strode proudly in the distance, scooping up a silvery fish in its long, elegant beak. Cattails danced to and fro in the light breeze. The soft babbling of a distant stream could be heard if the rabbits shut their eyes and strained their ears.

"And the best part," Moss whispered as his friends took in the sight, "is that there's not a whiff of elil. Don't you think we might be able to live here, rather than searching far and wide for a warren? We could make our own here instead!"

"This is incredible!" Trillium said, darting forward to pull a cattail plant down by its stem. He edged forward to nibble at the rusty-colored end, but then recoiled back. "Even if some of the food looks better than it tastes."

"It looks peaceful enough," Redbud said. "No other rabbits around to bother us."

But not all the rabbits were fully pleased with Moss's idea. "The soil's not dry enough to make a burrow," Rain Lily said, twitching her nose suspiciously. "And I'm not about to believe that no elil live in a place full of easy prey like this."

Hawthorn felt torn. He loved the look and smell of the place Moss had found, and it didn't appear to be immediately dangerous. He sniffed and sniffed and could smell no hawks, owls, cats, dogs, badgers, foxes, or any of the rest of the Thousand. Yet a creeping feeling in his gut told him that Rain Lily must be right. Elil ate many creatures other than rabbits, and all the animals at the lake seemed precisely like the sort of prey elil would eat in lieu of a juicy rabbit. So why weren't there any?

Moss looked disappointed. "I was hoping you'd like it..." he mumbled.

"It's not that you did anything wrong, Moss," said Redbud, placing a forepaw on his shoulder. "It's just that we couldn't stay here. Rain Lily is right. There's no such thing as a place totally free from danger."

"But look around!" Trillium said, clambering over to Moss's other side. "Smell! There's no elil anywhere in sight or scent. Maybe Frith made this place just for us."

"But where will we dig burrows?" Rain Lily asked. "The soil here is wet and thick. Any rabbit that tries to dig even a scrape that's a little too deep will drown in mud. This is not a place for rabbits to live."

Trillium huffed before fixing Hawthorn in his dark brown, almost black gaze. "What do you think? You're the only rabbit that hasn't spoken."

Everyone suddenly turned to look at Hawthorn as well, and he simply wanted to disappear into the wet earth. He hated being put on the spot like this. "Well..." he muttered. There was a pause, and everyone craned their ears to listen. He coughed. "I think it's a lovely place, Moss, I do. The food here looks excellent, the water is clean, and the fact that we can't smell elil should be a good thing. But I feel compelled to agree with Rain Lily. There's nowhere for us to sleep, and Frith created elil and the rabbits at the same time. We're not meant to live without them. So they must be lurking somewhere around here, right?"

Trillium growled but said no more. Rain Lily nodded at him approvingly. Hawthorn simply wanted to run away. He hated this. There was nothing he hated more than this - being forced to make statements that he knew would cause a rift between his friends, especially now that they were all hlessil. They needed to stick together as one, not keep picking fights with each other.

Moss, dejected, hung his head and began to nibble at some of the grass. Rain Lily flicked her ears and nudged his forehead with her nose. "It was a noble idea," she told him. "But it's just not going to work. I'm sorry."

"Why don't we stay here for the day?" Redbud suggested gently. "Then we can decide where we want to start moving to tonight."

Rain Lily nodded. "Trillium, take Hawthorn and scout around the lake looking for any good places to travel beyond."

Trillium swished his tail in a dismissive way, but he nodded. It was clear to Hawthorn that he was itching to do anything other than sentry duty and digging scrapes. "Come on then," he said to his brown-furred friend. Hawthorn glanced at Moss, who looked up at him, before hopping slowly towards Trillium to begin their mission.


	10. The Hunting Grounds

Trillium's grumpy mood would have been enough to ruin any rabbit's day, but Hawthorn felt utterly miserable loping next to him. It seemed that everything that had happened during the past two days had done nothing but irritate Trillium, and Hawthorn couldn't understand why.

"What's wrong with you lately?" Hawthorn asked.

Trillium grunted. "What're you talking about?"

"Your attitude. You're acting like a fox pissed in your face. All anyone else is doing is trying to help. We're all in a bad situation right now, Trillium. You don't need to sit around picking fights and making it worse."

Trillium was silent for a moment, furrowing his thick brow in thought. "It's just not fair," he finally said. "It's not. I want to make the decisions, too. Why should Rain Lily get to make them all?"

"Because she's Owsla," Hawthorn said. "She was trained more than us. She knows more than us. She's seen and done more than us. We need to respect her opinion."

"But she was wrong about the snake! And she nearly got herself killed by that fox because she wouldn't listen to you! And now this - this outsider is going to be traveling with us? I don't like it, I don't like it one bit and I won't stand for it."

"Trillium," Hawthorn said seriously. "We're all going through a hard time right now. Rain Lily perhaps most of all. She's Owsla. It's her job to look after the rabbits of the warren, and because none of us except for her, you, me, and Moss lived, she's blaming herself. She's not in the right place right now. And besides, no rabbit can be right all the time. We need to work together, all five of us."

Trillium grit his teeth. His nostrils flared, his tail flapped up and down, and he hit the earth just a little harder as he hopped. But eventually, he was able to calm himself. "Fine. I'll do it to make you happy, Hawthorn, because you're my friend. But don't expect me to be happy about it."

Hawthorn sighed. "That's fair enough, I suppose."

Onward they went, looking about them. There was still no sign or scent of elil anywhere. "Can't go that way," Trillium noted as he looked over his shoulder. "Woods again."

Hawthorn's nose wrinkled upon remembering what the last trek through the woods had been like. "Yes, let's not."

"Maybe on the other side of the stream?" he suggested. "Seems pretty open that way."

"That might be too open," Hawthorn said. "Remember we'll need cover for elil."

"Yeah, but the meadow we're in hardly has any to begin with. As long as we keep moving, we'll be safe."

"But what if someone gets a stone in their paw? Or a hawk comes swooping down, trying to grab at one of us? We can't outrun a hawk, Trillium."

Trillium chuffed madly. "You're siding with her and she's not even here!"

Hawthorn's ears twitched and then flared. "Is that what this is about? This whole thing - you're angry because I listen to Rain Lily?"

"She's not even proper Owsla! She's a doe! Does aren't supposed to be Chiefs or Owsla, that's not how it works!"

Hawthorn let a deep growl come out of his throat. "Doe or buck or otherwise, Rain Lily is Owsla, and I'll have you know she was on her way to becoming a captain. She's the best of the best. I won't have you be a belligerent fool because of your prejudices."

"Or what?" Trillium growled. "What'll you do that'll make me change my mind? I'm the biggest rabbit in our group. I'm bigger than any rabbit in our warren was. I should have been in the Owsla!"

"You weren't in the Owsla because you're too obsessed with your own ego and self-importance to think about any rabbit other than yourself!" Hawthorn replied angrily, his voice rising to a shrill yell. "The job of an Owsla officer is to protect other rabbits! It's not about getting your way all the time and pushing the weaker ones around!"

"Like you would know anything about it! You're as skinny and scruffy as they come. The only thing you've got going for you is that you're not a runt. You could never be an Owsla!"

"Aren't you the one," Hawthorn asked slowly, "who told me I could be Chief?"

Trillium stopped, flicked his ears, paused to think. His breathing slowed and quieted. Finally, quietly, softly, he said, "I did."

Hawthorn nodded. "Then if you won't respect me on the basis of never being able to be Owsla, respect me on my being able to become a Chief Rabbit. A Chief listens to their captain of Owsla. They respect the opinion of the Owsla. A Chief recognizes that a good Owsla is what keeps them and their warren safe. And I do mean they, Trillium, not he."

Trillium paced. He turned around in tight circles, mumbling to himself. Hawthorn sat on his hindquarters, making himself as tall as he could, and waited for Trillium's response. Finally, Trillium said, "So you really don't think I could be Owsla?" His voice was small, soft. It reminded Hawthorn of a wounded kitten.

"I think," Hawthorn said with a meaningful pause, "that perhaps you would be better suited to Owsla when you are older and more experienced."

Trillium flicked his ears as he let them droop closer to his head. Though Hawthorn knew he would never apologize, it was apparent that Trillium had been properly scolded for the first time in a long time. He hated to do it, hated to treat his friend like an insolent kitten, but he couldn't let his friend's ego get in the way of the group's mission to find a new home.

Letting the issue drop, Hawthorn fell back to his feet and began to look about him. "Let's see if we an follow the stream, yeah? It might show us somewhere we can travel safely." Trillium simply grunted and let Hawthorn lead the way.

Hawthorn, with his smaller frame and quicker feet, was used to being ahead of Trillium when they moved. However, ordinarily their feet made a steady rhythm together. Hawthorn's feet would make a small pitta-pitta sound, and Trillium's would fall with a low wh-thump. Pitta-pitta, wh-thump. Pitta-pitta, wh-thump. It was steady, even, measured.

Now it was all off balance. Perhaps Trillium had been so badly thrown off by Hawthorn's severe warning that he didn't even try to move in the same way he used to. In any event, Hawthorn was troubled by the lack of rhythm.

Pitta-pitta- wh-thump- pitta- wh-thump- pit- wh-th- pitta-pitta.

It was all wrong, and he didn't like it one bit.

Hawthorn looked overhead. Not a bird in the sky, not even a robin or a blackbird. Just a massive expanse of the brightest blue, with not even a cloud in the sky to block it. "We should head back after we get to the stream," he suggested. "Frith'll set before we get to everyone else if we stay out much longer than that."

Trillium simply grunted.

"Are you going to be silent the entire way now?"

"No."

Hawthorn sighed. He supposed that he should just let Trillium mope. He would be back to his old self soon enough, anyway.

They loped across the plush, dark green grass until the clear water of the stream was in plain sight. No cattails obscured its edges, as they did the lake. Here, Hawthorn could plainly see that the stream ran fast and shallow, and when he dipped a paw in, the tiniest minnow began to nibble on his toes. "The water looks better here than we ever had at the old warren," he remarked. "Perhaps we should follow it to see where it comes from."

"The ocean," Trilium remarked, hopping to Hawthorn's side and dipping his paws in the water. "My mother used to tell me that all water comes from the ocean."

"What's an ocean?"

"It's like a, hm, how do you describe it? All right. Imagine with me a rain puddle. Have you got that in your mind? Good. Now, make it the size of this lake. Right, right? Right. Now make that even bigger. Make it as big as the old warren, the forest, the meadow, and now this place. Can you imagine that?"

Hawthorn shook his head. "I can't possibly wrap my head around there being that much water in the world."

"Wrap your head around this: It's bigger than ten of those."

Hawthorn stamped. "That's unbelievable!"

Trillium nodded. "And it's full of salt."

"Salt?"

"Have you ever licked a rock and gotten that sharp, tingly taste on your tongue? That's the salt. The ocean is full of it."

Hawthorn blinked, his brown eyes lighting with excitement. "We should visit one day, you and I! Frith's wonders never cease to amaze me."

Trillium nodded. "We'll go together. It'll be a journey like El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle."

"Which one's El-ahrairah and which one's Rabscuttle?" Hawthorn jokingly asked.

"You're El-ahrairah," his friend answered, much to Hawthorn's surprise. "You're the clever and calm one."

Hawthorn scratched at an imaginary flea nibbling behind one of his ears. "That's not true."

Trillium didn't say any more. Instead, he clambered up a large, gray rock and stood on his hindquarters atop it. "Looks like following the stream is pretty open ground. We should at least use it as a guide so we don't get turned around."

"So it's settled. We'll tell the rest that we shall follow the stream out."

Trillium nodded, hopping off the stone in one leap. He landed with a thud and shook his head. "Let's get going back then."

The two rabbits quickly turned around and began to make the long but easy journey back.

Well, they had thought it would be easy, at any rate.

Traveling close to the lake's edge, a small snapping sound could be heard. "Did you hear that?" Hawthorn asked, freezing.

Trillium nodded behind him. "Yes, but I can't smell anything."

The noise was not heard again. Hawthorn and his black-furred friend eventually unfroze. "Stay on high alert," Hawthorn warned. "And keep your nose open. The second you smell something, tell me. I'll do the same."

"Right," Trillium said. He looked over his shoulder nervously. Seeing nothing, he began to follow Hawthorn once more. The two rabbits moved very slowly across the lakeshore, keeping their wits about them like armor.

A short way down, the snap could be heard again. Trillium's head whipped towards the woods they had passed. "It's coming from there," he whispered. "That sound."

"I smell man," Hawthorn growled softly. "What should we do?"

"Well, we can't swim," Trillium said. "And we can't outrun men, not with their firesticks."

While some rabbits, when faced with a human outside, will freeze in confusion and terror, for a man is an unfamiliar sight to them, the rabbits of the old warren had frequently been hunted by men. It was due to the frequency of their hunts that the Owsla began accepting capable does into their ranks. Trillium himself had stared down the barrel of a man's gun and only escaped with his life because the bullet had missed him by a hair.

Hawthorn looked at the lake. "We could swim if we tried."

"And we'd be shot."

Hawthorn flinched at the thought. But Trillium was right. They would inevitably be slowed in the water, making it easier to be shot at. "What shall we do?"

Trillium looked about him. "We'll have to try the woods," he said. "It's the only shot we have of finding decent cover."

Hawthorn flinched, but followed Trillium into the woods. Here, among the muffling of sounds in the trees and shrubs and leaf-litter, the snapping could be heard, as well as the low and slow grunting and muttering of humans. It was Trillium who led the way here, for he had, unfortunately, the most experience with men and guns. He kept close to low-hanging bushes that let their leaves just barely scrape the earth. It was a much tighter squeeze for Trillium than Hawthorn, for on top of being a round sort of rabbit, he was also nearly as large as a hare.

The journey was even more painstaking than the last through the woods, for they were trying to avoid being seen by humans, who were walking through the forest with their guns. Trillium whispered to Hawthorn to be careful, as the men were laying traps to snag a rabbit's foot.

As if on cue, the pathetic squealing of a rabbit could be heard. In terror, Hawthorn nearly bolted out, thinking it could have been Rain Lily, or Moss, or Redbud. Had it not been for Trillium blocking his way, he'd have run straight into the path of two men walking side by side. "It's not them," Trillium said. "I know their voices. It's not any of them."

"It's a rabbit!" Hawthorn persisted. "We have to help!"

"We can't."

Bang!

The squealing stopped.

"This is why there are no elil," the black rabbit said. "The man is the greatest elil of all."

The smell and sound of men approaching began to close in around them.

"I saw a pair come in from the lake, Bob," one of the men was saying. "Want me to try to bag 'em?"

"Only that big black one," the one called Bob said. "That'll be a good soup for your family."

"Yeah, yeah. Did you hear Jimmy take out that one in the snare just now?"

"Yeah. Hate hearing 'em squeal like that. Tying 'em up is cruel. Just give it one shot. If it gets away, let it. There's gotta be some sport in it, or it's just not natural."

The pair of rabbits could not understand what the men were saying, for the tongue of humans does not allow for the speech of the Lapine language or of the common hedgerow. At some point during our evolution, thousands of years back, we surrendered our animality for our perception of intelligence.

They narrowly dodged the feet of a man just in front of a yew bush. The man let out a startled yelp, and then, all at once, lights and sound began to explode. 

Time has a way of melting and twisting in the face of life-threatening danger. All the vital organs begin to work much faster than is expected, while everything outside seems to slow. What happened to the pair of rabbits next happened in only a matter of a few seconds, but to them, they would remember it as taking place over the course of what felt like an hour or more.

"Run!" yelled Trillium over the din, a bullet grazing the tip of his right ear. Both rabbits broke into a sprint, staying in the open to avoid getting trapped. Hawthorn had never felt more terrified in his life. His sides ached from the effort of breathing. The sharp crack of the gun was deafening, and his head began to ache, but he simply ran as fast as Frith would carry his feet.

"Dammit!" Bob spat in the distance behind them. "There goes my one shot rule, biting me in the ass."

They bolted out of the edge of the wood and disappeared among the cattails, catching their breath only when the sounds stopped.

"I thought," said Hawthorn, barely able to lift his head, "I thought you said we couldn't outrun men."

"We didn't," Trillium said, catching his breath. "They missed. That's how we got away. Frith must've - must've nudged the gun, or something. There's no reason for why they missed when we were that close."

"We're lucky."

"Mm."

There was a long silence as they kept their ears open for men and their guns. They could hear the distant, frustrated yells in the distance, but there was no sound of approaching footsteps, no clicking of a gun being racked or loaded, no squealing of a rabbit caught in a snare. The sounds of death, at last, fell silent.

"You were right," Trillium gasped, blood trickling from his ear where the bullet had touched it. "You were all right. This place is nothing but a death trap."

Hawthorn nodded, gulping air into his lungs like water. "Let's go as soon as we can and warn the others."


	11. The Departure

Ragged and heaving with effort, Hawthorn and Trillium sprinted to the other three rabbits once they were in view. Quickly, they explained to them about the men and their guns, and how they had narrowly escaped with their lives. The blood, slowly oozing from Trillium's left ear, punctuated the reality of their story. Moss's eyes grew wide in terror, while Rain Lily's face became stony and cold.

"We need to get your ear patched up, first thing," She licked at the blood in his ear, making Trillium wince. "Thank Frith it's not a deep wound. It should heal in a few days."

"Could we try swamp mud to patch it?" Moss suggested, taking a look at the wound.

"No, that'll just get it infected," Redbud said, combing through the low-lying plants at the lakeshore. "We should try lily pad juice instead. It helps heal things."

"Did you live near a lake by your old burrow?" Hawthorn asked.

"Near enough. Those of us who couldn't stand the crowding would travel out there for a few days at a time every so often."

Her shoulders hunched as she looked for a pad close to the edge, so that she would not have to swim. Hawthorn wanted to ask more, wanted to know more, but he knew it wasn't his place. Redbud's story belonged to her and her alone. If she wished to tell it, then so be it, but far be it from him to force it out of her for the sake of his own curiosity.

Moss hopped to her side with a quick, "Here, let me help you," and used his long, skinny legs to reach out farther than Redbud could. In no time at all, he snagged one of the thick pads in his claws and pulled it back to shore, shooing away the frog sitting on its opposite end. Delicately, he took it in his teeth and handed it to Redbud, soaking his chest in pond scum and mud in the process. She accepted it gratefully, flicking her ears at his soiled pelt with a grin before hopping back to Trillium.

Holding one side of the pad down with a forepaw, Redbud used her strong shoulders to tear a good chunk off. "This might sting," she told Trillium, "so be prepared for the pain and let it happen."

"Oh, that's reassuring," Trillium mumbled. 

Redbud squeezed the scrap of pad in her teeth, letting the greenish, watery juice out. It dripped all over Trillium's ear, coating the wound. He yelped but dug his claws into the earth and grit his teeth. "Sorry," she said before squeezing it again and letting more out.

"S'all right," Trillium said. "I'm lucky to still have the ear, at least."

Rain Lily looked at Hawthorn. "We can't stay here," she said, "but it seems we can't get to the stream you mentioned without going past those woods. What're we to do?"

"Wait 'til nightfaill," Trillium suggested as Redbud put the last of the lily juice on his wound. "Men don't like to stay outside fu Inlé. They'd much rather be inside their wood-and-stone burrows, sleeping." He snorted disdainfully. "Is there any chance you're done yet?"

"It's done, don't worry your little head," Redbud said. "Now try to keep it clean for as long as you can while that dries. No scratching!"

Trillium whined. "Of course it starts to itch as soon as you say that..."

"Well, that settles it," Rain Lily said. "We wait until fu Inlé to move on again. I suggest we all silflay and get our rest now."

"Oh, it's our job to sleep now? Excellent," Moss replied with a grin, unceremoniously flopping onto his back and rolling in the summer sun.

Rain Lily rolled her eyes and let her black mane fall over her back as she looked up at Frith.

\- - -

Eventually, night came, and Rain Lily rounded up all the rabbits. The juice on Trillium's ear had dried, making the hair stiff and awkward looking, to everyone's amusement.

"You two," the Owsla officer instructed Hawthorn and Trillium, "lead the way."

The pair nodded, and while they hopped side by side, Rain Lily, Redbud, and Moss formed a triangular pattern behind them, not unlike the one Moss, Redbud, and Hawthorn had used to travel back from the farm. Though there was no scent of elil, the tang of gunpowder now filled each rabbit's nostrils, putting them on high alert.

They kept close to the openness of the lake's shore, moving at a speed just short of running. Trillium was right, at least, about men needing to sleep. They could catch whiffs of the smell of humans from a few hours ago, but nothing fresh had come to take its place. This assured them slightly, but when Trillium told the rest of the rabbits of the snares, they remained vigilant. Moss in particular kept his eyes close to the ground, looking for anything that might catch a rabbit's foot in it.

Mercifully, they made it to the stream without incident. "So, you'd like to head that way?" Rain Lily asked.

"It seems like the best option," Hawthorn said. "It's wide open, the stream's clean and clear, and there are bushes we could hide under. If we're lucky, it'll be dry enough soil that we can dig scrapes in when we get tired." When Rain Lily didn't look convinced, he turned to ask her, "What's wrong?"

"I'm worried we won't find somewhere permanent," she confessed. "Redbud and that rabbit that got shot in the forest are the only two we've seen since we left our warren. Where have all the rest of the rabbits gone?"

"We haven't gone that far yet," Hawthorn said. "We just have to keep looking. Don't you remember Frith's blessing? El-ahrairah's people are the strongest and most populous in the world. Where there is grass, there are rabbits."

A frog ribbited in the distance. "I hope you're right," she said. "I really, really hope that you are."

"Have faith. We'll find this place meant for us, whatever and wherever it is."

"Are we ready?" Redbud asked, siding up to the pair.

Rain Lily and Hawthorn shared a quick look before the gray-and-black rabbit nodded. "Yes, sorry. We'd best be off, then. We'll get as far away from here as we can and follow the stream."

She tried to make it sound like a simple task, and the rabbits all had faith in her decisions now, but when each looked over the wide open field, cut down the middle by the stream, doubt began to fill their minds. It was impossibly long and wide, fading neatly off into the horizon without so much as a hill or tree to obscure the perfect horizontal line it formed. They each had no idea where this journey might take them, or when it would end. Only that, despite everything that had happened already, this seemed like the true beginning of it.


	12. The River Rabbit

The small group of homeless rabbits followed the narrow stream down across the field. But a rabbit's mind is not one for long, consistent thoughts, and so they all took to playing a game as they went. Each of them would try to hop across on the other side neatly without getting wet. The more impressive the jump, the better.

Redbud was easily the best at the game, for she was the fastest and most agile. Trillium opted out of playing, for he knew he was too heavy and large to even try to jump without getting his fur all wet, but he teased and encouraged the others to play all the same. Hawthorn was a bit of a sneak about it, waiting for the banks to get narrower before he dared to jump. Rain Lily didn't care much for the game, at first, but she was soon persuaded into joining in on the fun.

Moss twitched all over, eager to try. "Me next, me next!" he squealed.

Redbud leaped back over to the proper side of the stream, "All right, you try it, Moss!"

Moss backed up, giving himself plenty of room to jump. He crouched down to tense his leg muscles, letting his rump wiggle with excitement. "All right, watch out! Here I come!"

Moss then bolted straight ahead, running as fast as he could. and the others cheered at the speed of his bolt. But, in typical Moss fashion, the excitement got to him so much that he'd actually forgotten to jump, causing him to run headfirst into the stream.

Which, to Moss's terror, was not actually a shallow stream like Hawthorn and Trillium had thought it was. His body kept sinking and sinking into the water, and Rain Lily turned when she heard the splash.

"I thought you said this stream was shallow!" she snarled, biting Hawthorn's muzzle. "We have to get him out!"

"The banks are too soft, I can't keep a foothold in them," Redbud said, frantically running upstream.

Moss, meanwhile, used his back legs to push himself to the water's surface. He gasped for air and continued to kick wildly. "I'm okay!" he said. "It's all right, everything's all right. I can swim!"

"Not for long!" Trillium said, frantically spinning with worry. "Oh, what'll we do? There's nothing around to fish him out with! He'll drown!"

"No, no, watch. Watch this," Moss said, and he began to kick slower. Still able to hold himself afloat, he began to use his front legs to paddle, and slowly began swimming upstream. He was lucky that the group was headed in the same direction as the current. "I can go on like this for a while."

"How is that possible?" Hawthorn asked. "We're not built to swim."

Moss himself was not sure. Perhaps it was the thin and lanky shape of his body, or perhaps it was his longer legs, or perhaps it was due to all his weight being largely muscle and very little fat. But whatever the reason was, his body was perfectly suited to swimming, which, for many rabbits, is difficult, and outright impossible to do for any severe length of time. But here he was, this rabbit of the river, streamlined and strong, pushing his way through the crystal waters without an issue.

Eventually, the group came to a point where the bank was filled with several large rocks, and Moss was able to use those to propel himself back onto dry land. His body was soaked from head to toe, and he was breathing hard from the effort, but he had swallowed no water.

"I can't believe it," Rain Lily said. "You're alive. You swam for that long and you're still alive."

Moss looked up at her with a sly grin. "Aren't we all full of tricks every now and then?"

\- - -

They stopped next to the riverbank, not wanting to push their luck. Trillium, without any orders, began to dig a few scrapes in the dirt. It wasn't exactly dry or light soil, not as good as the soil in the meadow in front of Redbud's barn, but it would do well enough for a few hours. Rain Lily instructed Redbud and Hawthorn to lick Moss dry, while Rain Lily took it upon herself to look for more rabbits. The others objected to her leaving on her own, but she said that she couldn't bear to stand around doing nothing but giving orders all the time, and would not hear anything else telling her not to go. She promised she would be back by sunrise, which only gave her a short while to return.

"Sometimes I feel sorry for her," Redbud remarked as she cleaned Moss up.

"What makes you say that?" the soaked rabbit asked.

"She works so hard," she replied. "Thinks so hard, plans so hard, and in the end she'll never think anything she does is good enough. I was never in any Owsla, and the one in my old warren wasn't very good, but I meant what I said back in the meadow. I could grow to respect Rain Lily." Redbud noticed a stubborn flea clinging to Moss's pelt and she tore it out with her teeth, ignoring the golden-brown rabbit's little yelp of pain. "Truth be told, I think I might already."

"We all do," Moss said. "We'd be dead without her. And Hawthorn, here."

"You don't say?" Redbud asked.

"Hawthorn's the one who warned Rain Lily about the hrududil. If he hadn't told her, I might -"

Moss stopped, and Hawthorn shuffled away awkwardly. He knew what Moss was thinking, even if Redbud looked terribly confused.

If Hawthorn hadn't told Rain Lily about the hrududil, Moss would be the only one from the warren still alive. He hadn't been in the burrow. And though Hawthorn would never be sure what had happened to everyone else in the warren, he did know that he, Rain Lily, and Trillium were lucky to escape. And he also knew that Moss couldn't begin to dare with dealing with the loneliness of being left all alone. He dreaded even the word "lonely." Moss was a performer, an entertainer, a jokester. He thrived on the company of others. To even contemplate for a moment the feeling of total isolation, that was too much for Hawthorn's wiry little friend to handle.

Hawthorn decided to help Trillium dig the scrapes. Trillium had already gotten one done and was halfway through another. "Do you want me to help you with this one, or should I work on my own?" Hawthorn asked.

Trillium looked up. "Hm... well, I've almost got this one taken care of. Perhaps you could start on one just next to that one, on the other side? Yes, yes, right next to that little patch of yellow dandelions. Surprised those haven't turned yet. It's late in the season."

"There are all sorts of surprises in this world, it seems," Hawthorn remarked, hopping a few paces away and instantly getting to work digging. The grass was soft and plush beneath his toes, giving way easily to the dirt underneath. Hawthorn always liked the sounds of digging, that rough little scrubbing sound of claws and dirt. It was soothing to hear, and helped lower his stress from worrying about Moss. He glanced over his fluffy brown shoulder and saw that Moss and Redbud were still peacefully chattering quietly.

A lesser rabbit, a more possessive one, might have felt a pang of jealousy that Moss seemed to be getting along best with Redbud now, but Hawthorn was not that sort of rabbit. Everyone was feeling lonely, missing the friends they had back in their old burrow. How could he blame Moss, charismatic, charming, friendly Moss, for seeking companionship? Besides, it didn't mean that Hawthorn was being replaced. The group was still close, and they all still needed each other. So long as they stuck together, everything would be fine.

Except they hadn't stuck together. Rain Lily was completely out on her own. Hawthorn tried not to worry, he really did. Rain Lily was strong, smart, and amazingly capable. Everyone knew that. Recalling his defense of her to Trillium, he seemed to know it best of all. And yet the pit of worry that she would not come back gnawed in the pit of his stomach. It tore at his insides like an angry claw. He wished that the light of morning could just come already, so that he would know if she was due back. Some rabbits, like Rain Lily and Trillium, possessed in them a unique gift for understanding how time passed and went, but Hawthorn was not one of those rabbits. He relied on the movement of the sun and the moon, the color of the sky, the status of flowers and grass and vegetation to be able to know when it was.

Trillium, perhaps noticing either the look on Hawthorn's face, or that he had stopped digging, paused in his own efforts to look up and talk to him. "What's wrong? You seem upset."

"I'm worried about Rain Lily," he admitted. "We've let her go off all alone and I'm frightened she won't come back."

"She's strong. She's capable. You're the one who told me so, and we've all seen it. She'll come back, Hawthorn."

"I keep trying to tell myself that, but nothing helps. This worry's going to eat me alive faster than a homba or a pfeffa ever would."

"What about a lendri?" Trillium joked.

"Oh, a lendri? Now, that's faster than any worry could eat me, those ugly beasts. 'Oh, look at me, I'm a badger! Frith made me huge and scary, and I smell funny! In fact, I look and smell just like a rabbit called Trillium'"

Trillium's eyes widened before a smile fell across his face. "You sneak! I'll show you what an elil is!" The black rabbit pounced on Hawthorn, causing Hawthorn to kick at his belly. The two rabbits soon became lost in a mass of brown and black fur, wrestling and getting their fur covered in the dirt they had loosened up for their scrapes. Hawthorn allowed a childish giggle to escape as he wrestled with his old friend. Trillium had not been this joyful or relaxed since before the hrududil came, and Hawthorn was not about to let that moment go uncaptured.

Eventually, however, the dirt began to get tossed around beneath their bodies so much that it flew into their eyes, causing them to sting and burn. The rabbits parted from each other and groomed themselves, cleaning their dirty fur. "That was fun until I lost my vision," quipped Trillium.

"That was fun," Hawthorn remarked. "It's been a long time since we've all played like this. I'd almost forgotten what it felt like."

"Me too."

Soon after they were clean, they began digging again. Though they were both tired, the work went by much faster. The final four scrapes were dug in no time at all, and they all laid down to rest. Hawthorn remained wide awake, however, even as he laid in his nest. Resting his chin on the grass, he looked up at the sky. The blackness of night began to slowly fade into a dull gray, and the lightest yellow tinge of dawn faded just over the wide horizon. There was still no sign of Rain Lily, but Hawthorn could afford to be patient. She's a rabbit worth waiting for, he thought briefly, before shaking himself uncomfortably. Where did that come from?


	13. The Tunnels Below the Fields

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Name guide: Same as before, but adding:
> 
> Buttonbush - Barry Kramer

Rain Lily hopped slowly across the field, trying to save her energy. It was still dark out, and if she looked over her shoulder, she could still see the small dots of her rabbits in the distance. She hoped for their sakes they'd be all right. They'd have to be, right? Of course, they would. She was being silly. Moss was fine, and there weren't any elil around, and even if there were, this field was so wide open that they'd see it coming miles away. Yes. Yes, of course they'd be all right. Silly, silly Rain Lily. Always worrying.

Rain Lily looked about her. All right. Too much worry means not enough senses focused on right here. That gives elil an opportunity to pounce. Basic Owsla training. All right, focus. Focus. 

Rain Lily looked up. The moon was more than halfway through the sky, which gave her about four hours to explore. She didn't quite know what she was looking for, or if she would find it, but she was frustrated that all she had been doing for her friends was bossing them around. That was no way an Owsla officer should behave. Owsla are chosen because they are the ones willing to put themselves in the way of danger to protect others.

All right, no, she was drifting again. Focus. Focus.

It wouldn't do to scout directly upstream; that would waste valuable energy, since that was the direction the group was headed anyway. She wasn't about to cross the stream, that was what had gotten Moss in trouble in the first place, and she wasn't about to repeat that. Then that meant she had to travel in the opposite direction, towards the openness of the field. It wasn't likely that there would be much, but perhaps she could find at least a clover patch or an old burrow to sleep in.

Off she traveled at a slow hop to conserve energy. The chirping of crickets could be heard all around her. The air was still and quiet, with hardly a breeze to move the heat around. It clung to her pelt like anti-frost. But perhaps it was the loneliness that was the worst part.

Even after the warren had been lost, Rain Lily had not been truly alone. She had always been close to Hawthorn, or Trillium, or Moss, and now Redbud. Here, with this openness, this vacant space that could have been home to hundreds of trees, the empty air around Rain Lily threatened to consume her. All her fellow officers, Wheat, Flax, Mallow, Chokeberry, and the others - where had they gone? What was she to do without them? And, oh, Captain Blueberry, wise, old Captain Blueberry, who spoke to her like Frith himself had blessed her as a kitten, speaking of all the promise she had. How promising could she really have been if she couldn't save her rabbits?

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Rain Lily could hear the old rabbit, a light cream buck with gray tinging his muzzle, say in her mind's ears. "Not even El-ahrairah, with all his tricks and brilliance, could save his people from the war with King Darzin. In the end, as it always is, it was the Black Rabbit who chose to save them."

"But Captain," Rain Lily had protested, "if there's nothing I can do, that any of us can do, what's the point of an Owsla at all?"

Blueberry had chuckled. "I didn't say there was nothing you could do. What I said was that sometimes, we do all we can, and it won't be enough. And that's all right. We all have our limits."

Rain Lily did not want to be limited. To accept limitation was to accept failure, and she could not do that. 

But she had failed, hadn't she?

Rain Lily sat on a patch of soft earth, curling up small and into herself. What was the point of even acting like she was still Owsla, anyway? It hadn't been good enough before. Where was the guarantee that it would be good enough now? Mewling into her paws, Rain Lily pinned her ears back on her spine and simply lay there. She let the weight of gravity and guilt paralyze her there, in that spot, in that moment, in that feeling of sadness one experiences when they feel they have done something utterly unforgivable.

"Um, excuse me?" a small voice suddenly said.

Rain Lily flicked her ears and shot her head up, looking all around her. No one was there. That was odd. Had she dreamed it?

"Excuse me," said the voice again, "but you're standing where I'm digging."

"What?" Rain Lily asked aloud, rising to her feet.

"You are standing," the voice repeated, louder and slower, "where I am digging. Please. Move. I can't get out."

Rain Lily felt the soft earth beneath her shift, and she leaped up and away in surprise. The dirt shook for a moment, the scraping of claws audible now, and soon a rabbit rose out of the earth. He was filthy, covered in dirt from head to tail, and he shook the loosest of it off him in the manner in which a dog will shake when it comes in from the rain.

"I-I'm sorry," Rain Lily sputtered. "I didn't hear you."

"It's all right," the rabbit said, hastily beginning to clean himself. "I haven't seen any other rabbits around in a long time, anyway. I'm not upset." He licked his fur clean, and Rain Lily could see that he was a soft grayish-brown color with a silly tuft of dark brown fur atop his head and around his muzzle. What a strange-looking rabbit, she thought.

"My name is Rain Lily," she said after a period of silence. "I'm a hlessi. I come from a small group, but I left them behind for a few hours to scout ahead."

"Oh, that's interesting," the strange rabbit said. 

Rain Lily waited for this rabbit to introduce himself, but either he was very rude or the thought simply didn't occur to him. "And yours is?" she asked finally.

"My what?"

"Your name."

"My n- Oh, oh, wow, I'm sorry. Wow. Uh, my name is, uh, it's Buttonbush. I'm from around here, kind of. It's uh, well, it's nice, I guess."

Eloquent, Rain Lily thought.

"So, Buttonbush, where's your warren?" she asked. "Or are you a hlessi?"

"Um, well, I live alone. I have dug a warren, but there's no one in it other than me."

"Oh, that's too b- Wait, what?" Rain Lily's ears perked up. "You've dug an entire warren?"

Buttonbush nodded.

"By yourself?"

Buttonbush nodded again. "It passes the time."

"Can I - Can I see what you've dug out?" 

"Sure, if you like. I'll take you to another tunnel though. This one here's still sort of loose. I was hoping to go back in and pack it in more, you know? But it's fine, it's new. Here, here, follow me." He began to hop further north, taking his time. Rain Lily followed, frustrated at the slow pace she had to take. She'd have loved to move faster, but she didn't want to be rude. Even if it was a warren of one, it was a warren, and she was its guest.

They came upon a large, wide opening in the middle of the field. Rain Lily could see that it curved sharply to the left, the size of an average rabbit. "It's not all that much," Buttonbush told her, "but you're welcome to go inside. I'll follow you."

Thank Frith! Rain Lily hopped into the hole. It was deeper than she expected. He'd done a decent job of making a burrow's entrance by himself. Squeezing through the opening, she pushed herself down the tunnel. It was a tight squeeze, but not uncomfortable. The dirt was hard and packed in, which was remarkable for a single rabbit to accomplish. "How long have you lived here?" she asked.

"How long? Uh, good question. Um. Hm. Like two years?"

"Completely alone, with no company?"

"Yeah, but I mean, that's all right, I've been busy. Oh, oh, turn right here, this tunnel's got a weak spot coming up, I need to go back in and fix it."

"You knew that without seeing it?"

"I've been down here a long time, miss."

Rain Lily's ears twitched slightly in the tight space, and she pushed herself through the tunnel to her right. It curved sharply down in a U, and she got her nose covered in dirt. Huffing loudly, she cleared her nostrils and followed the sharp curve back up.

So this went for a matter of nearly an hour. The tunnel system was wide and impressive, but it had no deep, wide caverns for many rabbits to sleep in. Regardless, the work that Buttonbush had managed to complete on his own was highly impressive. Rain Lily could see easily how useful he could be. A rabbit this talented and dedicated to his work, rather than dismissing it as "doe's work," like Trillium had. With his help, the group could dig out a suitable warren in a matter of days.

They exited close to the stream, far from where Rain Lily had come from, but at least it was a straight line back. "So, uh, what do you think?" Buttonbush asked awkwardly.

"It's incredible!" she told him. "I can't believe a single rabbit's managed to dig so much!"

"Well, I mean, I had the time." He scratched behind one of his ears, casting his gaze to the stream.

"Why do you live all alone?" Rain Lily asked him. "Where do you come from?"

"Oh, I come from over that way," Buttonbush said, pointing to the other side of the stream. "I used to live in a small warren, not too many rabbits. But they all got sick, and a humba got most of them. So I ran while I had the chance and made it here." He sniffed and promptly sneezed, sending errant dirt flying. "I've been alone ever since."

"Do you enjoy being alone?"

He tilted his head to the side, as if unsure what she was asking. "Um... Well, I mean..."

"Because, if you don't," she prompted, "you could come back with me. My friends and I, we would be lucky - no, blessed - to have a rabbit like you among us."

"Where are you going?"

"We're not quite sure yet," the Owsla officer admitted, "but we intend to follow this stream until we find a high place, with dry soil." The phrase sounded cliché, so she clarified it with, "You know, for strategic, elil spotting purposes, that sort of thing."

"Oh, that sounds nice," he said. "There's a few hills when you follow the stream from the other side of the river, it makes a sharp left you can't see from here. We used to play in it in my old warren, my brother and I. He's gone now, though. The Black Rabbit called him in all that sickness."

"I'm very sorry to hear that," Rain Lily replied.

"No, it's for the best. It's better this way. He's not sick anymore." He paused, blinking, before giving himself a quick shake. "Is it all right if I meet your group before I make any decisions? I've been here a long time, you know, and I don't want to just, y'know, leave all my work behind, you know?"

Rain Lily's nose scrunched up a little before she replied. "Of course, that's fine." She looked up at the sky, turning gray with the first tinges of morning light. "I need to be getting back anyway. Hawthorn will worry about me."

"Who's Hawthorn again?" Buttonbush asked.

"Oh, he's a friend. Probably the best friend I have, really." An image of his goofy, buck-toothed grin came to mind and she smiled. "Yes. My best friend."


End file.
